Her hands flew over his wide, flexed back, finding its mounds and ridges, unleashing its latent power. He groaned and sent his hands to cover her deliciously imprisoned softness. At the limits of her corset, he reveled in the contrast of boned binding and soft, delectable flesh. And he shuddered hotly at the realization that at the center of all that pristine muslin and proper restraint was a succulent coral blossom of womanly heat... waiting.

He fumbled blindly for the ties of her petticoats, refusing to take his mouth from hers for even a moment. A throaty, seductive laugh rumbled in her throat as she realized what he wanted and helped him find them. She slid her mouth from his long enough to whisper, "You don't want me to leave them on?"

"Petticoats..." he rasped between voracious nibbles of her lips, "aren't my favorites."

They were shed instantly, and when she felt him working the corset lacings at the small of her back, she sent her hands to still them. His eyes were black with need when they opened above her.

"Tonight I want your bare skin," he rasped with a crooked, desirous grin. "I want to love all of you, and only you. Just Whitney."

In seconds, he had peeled her underclothes from her, all but her stockings. And he carried her to her bed and covered her intimately with his hands and eyes. His long supple fingers teased her to quivering peaks of arousal. And wherever they led, his pleasurable mouth followed, blazing wet little trails across her breasts, her belly, and down her hipbones. He caressed the swell of her breasts, nibbled her burning nipples and invaded the maddening little thatch at the base of her belly.

She writhed and whimpered, gasped and wriggled under his touch, impatient for greater pleasures and yet unwilling to relinquish the smallest rapture. And with each stroke, the fires of need built higher in her, making her crave the completion that only his body could give her. "Love me, Garner," she moaned, arching into his hands, seeking him with her burning body even as she called to him with her woman's heart. "Love me... always."

Roaring heat engulfed them both as he slid between her smooth, muscular thighs and invaded her creamy, turgid flesh. She wrapped her legs around him, urging him higher, meeting his forceful movements, reveling in the lean power of his beautiful body as it coaxed and commanded her own. His arms slid under her shoulders and his hands wrapped themselves in her hair as he arched and plunged against her. A wild, powerful rhythm claimed them; giving and receiving, surrendering and conquering in the sublime, unending cycles of love. Wave after wave of tidal force brought them together, ever closer to the bright, dimensionless planes of pleasure that could only be reached in a true joining.

Higher, hotter, closer... till gradually existence and movement slowed, time dissolved into pinpoints of pure, inexpressible feeling. Launching free of human bounds, she shattered unseen limits and soared through fathomless regions of joyous pleasure. And unerringly through the vast, uncharted reaches, he found her, and they were joined in spirit as they were in flesh.

A long while later she felt him nuzzle her ear and place a soft kiss on her temple as he slid to the bed beside her. She drew a breath, but when he pulled her warm, pliant body against his, she released a sigh instead of a protest. She opened her eyes and saw that he was watching her, a wry softness to his expression and a frank, adoring warmth in his lazy blue gaze. His dark hair was damp and tousled and his bronzed face and shoulders wore a satiny sheen of spent heat. She'd never seen him so relaxed and unguarded.

A sweetly painful ache nestled in her chest. She trailed a finger down his square chin and down his breastbone, twirling it in the dark, lacy hair of his chest. He shivered.

"You realize, of course, that I'm going to have to wear corsets all the time now, underneath those lady-dresses."

"I-" he began, then cleared his throat. "I suspect so. And how perfectly wicked of you to remind me of it. You realize, shameless hoyden, that I'm not going to be able to look at you without recalling what you're wearing underneath. And if you're going to do that to me," he glanced down at the way her palm was making circles over one of his hard, flat nipples, "you'd better be prepared to take the consequences. I'll not be held responsible for my urges if you continue to encourage them like that."

Her hand stilled and her eyes danced with mischievous lights. "Are you saying I might get more than I bargained for?"

"I'm saying exactly that, my hot little Whiskey."

"More of your loving, your smiles, your time, which?" Her fingers swept over his chest and up his throat to feather over his lips. A womanly glow lit her enchanting heart of a face. "I want them all, Garner. I want you in my bed every night, the way you are right now. And I'm serving notice... I intend to have you. If you go on ignoring me and avoiding me and resisting your urges to bed me, you'll have a fight on your hands." Her voice dropped to a silky, irresistible whisper. "And I can be a very dirty fighter."

And as if to prove it, she unleashed that devastating Daniels grin, aiming it straight at the vulnerable center of him. There was nothing in the "Iron Townsend" repertoire that could even come close to the soul-bending power of that bit of persuasion. It was like looking full into the sun, dazzling and disorienting in the extreme. His chest crowded with something bewilderingly close to raw delight. She apparently cared enough about him to fight dirty for him.

"I want to be a wife to you, Garner Townsend. A real wife." She raised onto one elbow and her Daniels-Townsend jaw set in a demurely stubborn manner. "And if that means wearing fancy dresses and corsets and eating every bite with a different fork, I'll do it. And if it means learning to drink wine instead of whiskey, I'll do that too. And if it means living here with your Iron Family-"

She stopped and her eyes widened. What was she saying? Wear corsets? Give up whiskey? But even as her determination shocked her, she owned it. This was the tender paradox of Garner Townsend, the man inside the man; the one she had ached for, schemed and bargained for, and despaired of ever having. He was lying against her, warm and naked, staring at her with a soft-eyed wonder that was almost painful to behold. And she knew in that moment that whatever price he asked would be worth paying... for Garner Townsend's loving.

He watched her glowing determination with a poignant fullness in his chest. "Would you really do that, my sweet Whiskey? Would you really wear corsets and put up with my family and learn to spend money properly?"

"I would... if the trade was right."

"A bargain to end all bargains?" he laughed, caressing her with a bold, claiming stroke from thigh to breasts. Her eyes darkened with an ageless aura of womanly mystery. "What was it you wanted... my time, my smiles... and loving?"

"More," she admitted recklessly. "Because I'm yours, Garner Townsend. My time, my smiles, my loving are all yours." And with a flash of inspiration she added, "A hundred percent yours. Isn't that what you once said you wanted, a hundred percent?"

No words on earth could have shot as straight to his core. A hundred percent... totally and completely his, only his. The thought set his heart contracting with a crushing wave of possession. He shot up onto one elbow and rolled her onto her back, sliding one muscular leg possessively across her hip. His handsome features bronzed from the explosive jumble of joy and heat erupting inside him.

"Do you know, all my life I've had forty percent of things." His voice was deep and ragged as he caressed her cheek and stared down into the spendthrift warmth of her smile. "I can't remember ever having something that belonged completely to me, just me. Forty percent of the companies, of this house, my clothes, and even my pony when I was a child. Everything was always more Townsends' than Garner's. Until now. Now you're mine, wench. My woman." His beautiful eyes darkened with renewed hunger. "My wife."

Her mouth opened under his even as her woman's body and her stubborn Daniels heart opened to him irrevocably. And when he joined their heated bodies and began to move inside her again, she knew she'd just clenched the kind of deal every trader dreamed of... a true paradise bargain.

The next morning a discreet knock at the door awakened them, nestled side by side in Whitney's opulent blue bed. Garner raised himself onto his elbows and called permission to enter. It was Benson, with a huge armful of firewood and a perfectly oblivious smile on his face. Garner reddened and made sure the comforters were tucked securely about Whitney's bare shoulders, then waved Benson on to build up the fire. And before Benson left, Garner laid, orders for breakfast and hot baths for the two of them.

"Wake up, wife," he whispered into her ear, watching her stir lazily. She was perfectly desirable, tousled and kittenish in the jumble of sheets and comforters. He slid down into the body-warmed bedclothes and curled on his side around her, pulling her legs up and over his hip. Watching her waken, he felt a strange sense of calm that he was coming to realize was the fruit of the night's intense loving. It was past dawn and he half expected to find himself in pieces. But his thoughts were lucid, his body at peace. It was remarkably like the other time... that first night at Townsend House, when he had "comforted" her.

It was ironic that she who wreaked such havoc inside his body should also be the one to restore him so completely. She deliberately roused his volatile passions, then just as deliberately satisfied them. And last night, she'd roused his emotions, his pride, his complicated manly impulses for possession, and she'd satisfied them too. And in her wake, once again, his world became focused, comprehensible. It was a true revelation to him, this clarity of mind, this centered calm in the midst of him. And he turned this new sight upon himself, his life, and his family.

In the cold, circumscribed Townsend world of money and power, there was no room for anything as powerful and unpredictable as human desire. It had been condemned and exorcised from their collective being, and banished to realms of lesser mortals. Those who succumbed to its lure were deemed flawed in some basic way, vulnerable. And to be vulnerable in any way was anathema to the Iron Townsends. He smiled wryly at the appropriateness of Whitney's term for them. He'd spent twelve long, joyless years trying to recoup his standing with them, trying to prove he was an Iron Townsend, too. In the process, he had ruthlessly denied his most basic needs as a man; the experiences of intimacy and emotion, desire for a woman, and his own need for autonomy and independence.

And with a wriggle and a kiss and the bite of a button, Whitney Daniels had barged right into the empty, aching core of him. And once there, she announced her intentions to stay and audaciously demanded that he love her. And she'd gotten everything she wanted. He loved her tantalizing body, her stunning eagerness for physical loving, but he loved the stubborn, intriguing paradoxes of her being even more. He loved the brash, reckless vitality of her that thumbed its nose at his family's Godawful propriety and rigidity the way he never could. And he loved the tender, vulnerable young girl who had succumbed to her bewildering desire for him in spite of her loyalty to her father and her extended family.

Whitney watched him looking at her and wished she could have access to his thoughts. She prayed he wasn't getting cold feet about the bargain they'd consummated in the steamy night just past. She raised her head to kiss his cheek and murmur "Good morning," and soon found herself wrapped in a warm embrace, being devoured in a very leisurely and very reassuring fashion.

When the Townsends eventually did descend the stairs, the entire house stopped to stare. The scandals over Mrs. Townsend's new clothes had provided juicy fare indeed for the household gossip. All were shocked to see Whitney wearing a fashionable new high-waisted velvet dress, forest green in color and trimmed delicately with Ancelon laces and velvet ribbons. Her thick mane of burnished ginger was curled into ringlets and raised to a ladylike fall down her back. Around her throat was a creamy satin ribbon and over her shoulders was a lace-rimmed kerchief caught together at the front of her bodice by a carved ivory cameo broach. Her movements were surprisingly graceful in her heeled shoes, and she seemed virtually at ease with her new style of raiment. None could deny she was the very image of a proper Townsend wife.

They exchanged glazed and potent looks across the dinner table that afternoon, scarcely touching their own food and positively ruining everyone else's appetites. Whitney's stunning transformation and Garner's ardent and husbandly attentions to her set Byron's teeth on edge and sent him straight for his coat and his business offices.

Madeline watched with a stiff expression then escaped to her room in a royal huff. And Ezra eyed them sharply and wheeled toward his study with a particularly knowing sort of leer. That left the two of them virtually alone and they wiled away the rest of the afternoon with a belated tour of Townsend House and a walk on wintry Boston Commons. Their eyes and hands met often and each wondering smile explored the new boundaries of their relationship.

But by evening, when they gathered in the parlor, the collective Townsend pique had taken on towering proportions that made chilly inroads into the warmth that had developed between them. Garner felt the weight of duty and family disapproval weighing on his shoulders, and reluctantly began to speak again of the offices and prevailing commodity prices and shipping routes.

Whitney felt his withdrawal into that impenetrable Townsend sphere and her heart sank. She'd made good the third part of her bargain, thinking it would be all she could possibly want. But her coveted wifehood was scarcely a day old and, like a true Delilah, she was coming to desire even more. It struck her that when her pa spoke about a "living," he might have meant more than just the "providing" part; he might have meant actually living together, participating in each other's lives, sharing things. She caught the covert smile Garner sent her and the intimate promise in his eyes and was reassured that he meant to share her bed in a short while. But a strangely shaped little hollow inside her wondered if they'd ever share more.

Garner went dutifully off to the Townsend offices the next moring, leaving Whitney to her own devices for the day. She wandered about the house, trying not to upset the servants by being too helpful or too independent, and was generally successful. But midafternoon she managed to offend Madeline deeply by asking what she "did" all day, every day. Madeline leveled a scathing glare at her, collected a piece of ladyish needlework into her sewing basket, and exited in a major snit. Whitney watched the indignant twitch of the girl's skirts and issued a deep, unsettled sigh.

Minutes later she found herself standing in the hallway that led to Ezra's study, and wondering how she'd gotten there. When she turned to go, she came face to face with Ezra himself, humped over on his wheeled chair, creaking down the hallway toward her. He looked up just in time to keep from running into her, and stopped with an uncharacteristic fluster, struggling to turn the chair about to avoid her.

But the rough wooden wheels of the chair snagged on the hallway runner and he bobbled and tugged and shifted irritably trying to free them. Something thunked onto the floor from his blanket-covered lap and rolled toward Whitney's feet. A bottle... a brown, thin-necked bottle with some sort of liquid in it. She picked it up and stared at it, then at Ezra, who bristled and reddened and pulled his neck in defensively.

"Out of the way, woman!" he growled, deciding on a bold, frontal strategy and struggling to re-route his half-turned chair back to its original course.

"You dropped this."

But his bushy white brows knitted into a solid line and he batted both her and the bottle aside, making furiously for the door of his study. As he passed, she heard the unmistakable clink of still more glass bottles coming from beneath the blanket spread across his knees. And just as he reached the door a second bottle thudded onto the hardwood floor, skidding and spinning to a stop by the doorframe.

Ezra snarled and his sallow face flushed, but he forged straight ahead, leaving Whitney to collect the second bottle and trail after him. She caught him in the window-lit study, and planted herself in front of him as he wheeled obstinately toward the littered mahogany desk.

On impulse, she grabbed a dangling corner of the blanket and gave it a tug.

"W-wha-a-a-?!" he sputtered and clutched futilely. Four more bottles were tucked about his lap and between his knees on the chair. He huddled, glaring darkly at her. Caught. Red-handed.

Her green eyes danced over the incongruous sight, then drifted pointedly to the two bottles she held in her arms. The blend of pride and petulance in his withered face tugged at something inside her, reminding her of Uncle Julius's and Uncle Ballard's mulish spells. She worked the cork of one bottle free and took a sniff. A sweet, brown vapor filled her head and seeped into her blood. Rum. She closed her eyes briefly, analyzing it, absorbing it. Then she leveled a searching look at Garner's grandpa, caught sneaking spirits into his study. He stared back with a wary gruffness, as if waiting for her to say something. When she didn't, his bushy white brows lowered farther.

"You goin' to tell them?" he finally demanded.

She straightened with a keen, thoughtful look at him as she realized who "them" was. "It seems to me a man's entitled to a tilt or two in his own house."

"It's only ten percent mine," he snorted disgustedly. He peered at her from the corner of his eye. "They won't let me have any. Ever since I was struck, all I get is a glass of wine at supper." His sharp nose made a rather interesting curl. "Even that's damnable watered down. Pure souse."

Their eyes met as each studied and evaluated the other. He crossed his arms over his thin chest and his mouth pursed stubbornly. She matched him, crossing her arms around the two brown bottles with a deepening frown of speculation.

"They won't let me have any spirits, either," she mused wryly. "I'm supposed to learn to drink wine." She made a face and shuddered visibly at the idea and the corner of his mouth twitched.

Silence fell again as they regarded each other. Her eyes narrowed; his crinkled at the corners. She chewed her bottom lip. He puckered his mouth a bit more. A stubborn Townsend Scowl tightened his face, even as a Daniels glow lit hers. They watched each other's eyes widen, began to read each other's thoughts. Was it possible... ?

"Get the glasses!"

"Right." She came to life, dumping the bottles on the desk and following the finger Ezra flipped toward a dusty, laquered cabinet in the corner. She hurried back with two thick glass tumblers and, at Ezra's order, left them on the desk to pull over one of the leather-covered wing chairs. Soon they were nearly knee to knee beside a row of brown bottles along the edge of the desk.

Ezra poured while Whitney watched, and when her gaze narrowed on the unequal portions he brought the level in the glasses even. Their glasses lifted in a conspiratorial salute and down it went.

"Ahhh." Ezra leaned back, savoring the clean bite of the pungent brew, and watched Whitney's clear eyes roll as she examined the taste of it. She melted physically and her eyes sparkled as she took another assessing sip.

"It's good," she nodded and inhaled again over the liquor. "Not quite Daniels whiskey, but it's still mighty fine spirits." And she held out her glass for another shot.

Ezra poured them both another and leaned forward in his chair with righteous indignation. "They won't even let me drink my own rum. Won't let me do anything I want anymore. It's always 'your health' this and 'don't be absurd Ezra' that! My old father made me quit the distillery when I hit fifty, so's to make room for Byron. Then made me run for office..." His face soured and Whitney chewed back a surprised laugh as it took on the same "persimmon" look of the other Iron Forebearers. "God A'mighty, I hate politics. Always did. People on your neck day and night, do this, vote that, and you have to look interested in every damned fool idea that comes along. Everybody either has his hand out or in your pocket. Byron's the real politician-" He paused, realizing she was listening, and pulled his chin in suspiciously. It had been a long time since anybody listened to him.

"All I wanted to do was run the distillery. That's all. I was good at it too, made the best damned Boston rum."

"You did?" Warmth blossomed in her winsome features. "I miss it, too, the distilling. Scenting the grain, tasting the water, the yeasty, sweet-sour smell of the beer before it's cooked, the crackle and the smoke of Uncle Ballard's hickory fire under the still on a frosty autumn night..." Her tone and face became wistful.

"Y-you actually distilled whiskey... yourself?"

"Of course." She came back to the present. "My pa and I distilled the best whiskey in all of western Pennsylvania. Pa says it's in a body's blood or it's not. I've got the senses for it, true enough."

A dazzling Daniels smile spread over her smooth, delicate features, rattling Ezra's rusty faculties, sweeping him up in its net of charm. It was a long minute before he could reclaim his eyes and the power of speech.

"That's how you did it, isn't it?" he swallowed another gulp of rum and squinted against her unnerving impact. Beautiful and spirited and sensual only began a description of her, his grandson's unusual wife. She was a consummate "trader," a woman who disdained money and all its power and trappings, and now a rum-drinking distiller with a hundred-proof smile.

"Did what?" She laughed, a warm-whiskey sort of laugh, rich and potent.

"That look... that's how you hooked him," he charged. "Had to be something special. He's hardly gone near a woman since that hot little English piece some years ago."

"Little English piece?" Despite the buzz of the rum in her head, the tidbit brought her alert instantly. Nuances of things Garner and his family had said came rushing back to her. The unholy way Byron had greeted news of their marriage... something about other "idiocies" and disgraces and about her not being the first to try fortune hunting with Garner. With a man as handsome and virile as him... "He had problems with a woman... before?"

"Women... two of 'em, at least. Got the damndest way of collectin' women and trouble, that boy has. The first when he was sixteen-got caught in the stable with a gal fixin' to make sure she was going to be Mrs. Townsend. Byron was giving his cronies a glance at his new stallion-the gal's father amongst 'em-and they came across the whelp all tankered up an' playin' stallion himself." Ezra chuckled wickedly, his faded eyes coming alive with the recollection.

"There was quite a stir because she was older than him, and turned out to be right worn at the heels... a damned public ledger, if you take my meanin'. Well, he was packed off to England in disgrace. Did a fine job of all that military trainin' at the Royal Military College. But then, after he finished, his best friend's betrothed took a hard-climbin' fancy to him-plopped a buttered bun right in his bed, the connivin' tart! There was a duel, of course, and he wounded the young blood. Came home with his tail between his legs and he's not taken a drink nor hardly looked at a female since."

"I told Byron, 'leave the boy alone-he's just got to get the urge out of his system.' But Byron, he's just like his mother was, no damned urges at all. Didn't understand a bit of it. It wasn't the whelp's fault he was born handsome and rich... and randier than most." Ezra laughed at Whitney's wide-eyed flush of color. He couldn't know he'd just solved part of the mystery of Garner Townsend and of his desperate resistance to her.

Apparently she wasn't the first Delilah he'd encountered. Twice before, he'd been disgraced in his almighty family's estimate, by his "urges" toward women and his entanglements with them. He'd been sent all the way to England to escape a disgrace, and ended by getting involved in an even worse one... wounding his best friend over a Delilah.

Now she'd involved him in yet a third disgrace, one far more devastating for its far-ranging impact on his life. She'd done the same thing to him the others had; used his own desires against him to suit her own purposes! And in fulfilling her desires, she had dragged him into embarrassment after embarrassment, into humiliating breaches of his personal code and degrading confrontations with his commander and his family. It was a miracle he could even bear to look at her, much less smile at her so warmly and touch her so gently and love her so compl- Love her? She froze, glass in hand, sitting on the edge of the chair. Was that what lay in the depths of his well-guarded heart? Love? Was that what roused his powerful desire for her and urged him to comfort and defend her and to lay such tenacious claim to her future? She felt a sudden flush of warmth for him rising in her middle, crowding into her chest. His concern for her welfare and for her acceptance in his world suddenly took on a whole new wealth of meaning. He'd declared that she owed him a wife... then he'd comforted and pleasured and provided for her as though she were the cherished choice of his heart. The thought multiplied that warmth a thousandfold, sending it surging through her in joyful waves.

He was absolutely right, she did owe him a wife. A devoted wife. A wife he could be proud of. A loving wife. And she did love him... with every particle of her being. And he was going to love her, too, someday... see if he didn't!

"I said..." Ezra was leaning forward in his chair, holding the dwindling bottle poised over her glass, "are you ready for another?"

Whitney came back to .reality, blinking at him, then at the empty glass tumbler she clutched. "Oh... well..." she licked her lip ruefully, then covered the top of the glass with an apologetic hand. "I don't think so. You see,I have to learn to drink wine. I mean, I want to learn it. And I may as well start now."

Ezra's face puckered as he read the determined, womanly glow in her lovely face with uncanny ease. "Givin' it up for him, are you?"

She flushed, but his assertion struck a spark in her gemlike eyes that soon illuminated her whole countenance. It wasn't quite "giving it up," she thought. It was more like a trade; relinquishing a bit of spirits to gain another little bit of Garner's heart.

"Well, damnation," Ezra swore, plunking the bottle back on the desk beside him and looking testy. "I just find me somebody to drink with-" He crossed his thin arms over his chest, humped back in his chair, and glared at her. But as she sent him a wry, wistful smile, he jolted to life again before her eyes. "Well then, I'll teach you to drink wine. I know all about wines!"

And before she could react, he was fumbling jerkily to turn his chair toward the door. "Don't just sit there, woman-give me a push!"

She jumped to her feet and, as they reached the door, Ezra began shouting for Edgewater in the remnants of a once-impressive baritone. The butler met them in a rush, in the hallway outside the study door. Ezra drew himself up imperially in his chair and summoned his best Townsend sneer of command.

"Wine... in the dining room. Bring me a bottle of that snippy little Chablis we had for supper two nights ago and a bottle of our best claret... and a smooth sherry... and some of that most excellent Madeira and a good, sturdy Moselle and a hearty, bedrock Burgundy-"

"But surely sir-" Edgewater looked from Ezra to Whitney with one of his habitual sniffs, and quickly sniffed again, and leaned closer and sniffed yet again. His long, sober nose curled, and he stiffened at the aura of rum about them. "I should think you'd already had your fill."

"And bread, dammit! And goblets, plenty of them." Ezra's wrinkled face darkened, taking on the semblance of a prune at his chief houseman's hesitation. "It's still ten percent my house and ten percent my cellar. And if you don't bring me the wine I want-by damn-you'll be out on one hundred percent of your arse!"

Whitney had to stifle a giggle at the way Edgewater blanched and jerked his arms. He heeled and made straight for the kitchens and the wine cellar, his black coattails flapping so that he resembled a wounded crow. Ezra drew a deep, satisfied breath and motioned Whitney to wheel on. "The dining room, woman."

Chapter Nineteen.

That's where Garner found them when he returned from the offices that evening, in the dining room, surrounded by bread crumbs and more than a dozen open bottles and drawn decanters of the Townsend cellar's best wines. Ezra was slumped against the back of his chair, snuffed like a wick and snoring loudly. Whitney was awake, for the most part, with her cheek propped in her palm, repeating names and vintages and characteristics of vintages, in the manner of a schoolboy memorizing Latin.

Under Edgewater's and Madeline's indignant looks, Garner bronzed furiously and strode in to collect his wayward wife. The sight of him kicked up a spark of recognition in her wine-weighted eyes and she managed a small, lopsided smile as he took her by the shoulders and demanded to know wha't in the devil she thought she was doing.

"Ohhh... yourrr gran'pa wus teeeching me wines..." She fell nose-first against his braced stomach and spoke into his loins "... ssso you'lll be proud uf me."

He stood there, with her sweet frame melting into him, his justifiable outrage cheated by her irresistible candor. Hell. She'd apparently gotten to crusty, embittered old Ezra the way she'd gotten to him. He took her heartlike face in his hand and tilted it up, feeling the odd pull in the center of his chest that he associated only with her. Drunk as a skunk, and she still exuded that open, guileless quality that made all her perfidies seem hopelessly like virtues.

After his first irate flush of embarrassment, he realized that the "disgrace" of it didn't seem to matter to him. What did matter was that he wanted to believe she'd gotten drunk while keeping her promise to learn to drink wine... so she could be a "proper" wife to him. He wanted to believe she cared about more than her unholy Daniels pride in a bargain and the pleasure he could give her. He wanted to believe she was coming to care about him... to love him... if even a little.

He stood holding her limp form against him, feeling a deep tenderness for her and a genuine fear of her at the same moment. His growing dependence on her desire for him rattled him to the depths of his being. She wanted him, he knew. But there might come a time when she wanted something or someone else more.

He collected her into his arms and she snuggled drowzily against him as he carried her through the pall of Madeline's resentment and Edgewater's disdain. They trailed him into the center hall, exchanging raised eyebrows as he carried her up to her room.

The next morning Garner leaned near her ashen face with a vengeful grin. "You're probably right. A woman who can't hold her wine any better than that, probably oughtn't to drink it." She opened her mouth to respond, but clamped her hand over it and lurched over the side of the bed toward the basin he held.

When she'd regained her breath and her reason, she stared up at him from the tangle of her hair and bedclothes. "I'm sorry. Your grandpa offered to teach me about wines and-Lord!-they do sneak up on a body."

"I can see," he said, sitting on the edge of her bed and stroking her pale face in gentle remonstrance, "that it's dangerous to leave you alone for very long. What am I going to do with you, Whitney Daniels?"

"Whitney Daniels Townsend?" She managed a beleaguered spark. "I am Mrs. Townsend now." Garner laughed. "You certainly are."